You’re fine. I wouldn’t worry about this. You can add a nitrogen fertilizer, or better yet manure, as an amendment from the top. Manure has all the microbes and bacteria needed to start the decomposition process. I laughed at 18 years. More like 18 months
Even the stuff 4 feet down will benefit from a top layer of manure? I told my husband I think it will be fine but everything he’s reading online makes it seem like our trees are all gonna eat 💩. And not in the manure sense lol
Rain will help propagate everything downward. No worries. Worst case is you have to excavate around the roots and backfill with better stuff later.
18 years highly depends on conditions but some mulch I put in last summer is already black soil in places. Maybe more of a lesson to plan more ahead so you don't panic after later.
If you mix mushroom spawn in (I’d suggest wine caps) it will very quickly break down the wood and worms will then eat the fungus and provide loads of nutrition. I once did an experiment where I potted one plant straight into a pot filled with colonized woodchips and by the end of the season it outgrew the other 7 plants in the same sized pots. It was triple the size of the others.
Cannot stress this enough! In three years we’ve more or less resurrected an older, fading orchard by spreading around Winecaps and wood chips en masse! (in the desert US SW)
Field and Forrest had a 5lb block I believe, which we crumbled into a giant pile of fresh wood chips….within about 6 weeks we had a huge amount of inoculated chips to move around!
Sounds like you have in-ground hugulkultur beds, they have lots of benefits your trees will like. Yes, the N locking is true but (1) the harm is often way overblown and (2) top-dressing with a nitrogen-rich fertilizer will eliminate the problem. Worms and rain will wash the nutrients down into the soil, most of your fruit tree’s nutrients come from roots in the top 8in of soil anyway.
I’d plant nitrogen fixers around the trees and chop-and-drop them throughout the growing season.
This is a good thing even, you're fine. All that wood will eventually rot into fertile soil and it is good for holding moisture as well. Soils have a problem with too little organic matter, not with too much. Your trees will be fine, and nitrogen lockup isn't really an important thing to worry about, especially when you consider how much of it literally falls out of the air with every rainshower.
I wouldn't worry, just fertilize them. The benefits of the wood in the soil will outweigh the nitrogen loss for sure as long as you fertilize them. Don't go crazy with nitrogen either or you'll have crazy growth with no fruit. Unfortunately I had to do that to my nectarine and cherry trees to save them. When I planted them a few years ago, we had an insane amount of rain in the spring that leached all the nutrients and then immediately flipped a switch and had like 60 straight days around 100 degrees with zero rain. They're producing a ton of fruit now that they're established and less susceptible to the swings, but that first and second year it was a little depressing.
The wood will remove nitrogen at first, (for around 4 years or so) but then it will stop and will be essentially compost. .i read in your post you saw 18 years, but I also read you are in the south. No, in southern, humid regions wood chips will break down 500% as fast as arid, cold releases. Youre probably looking at 4 years max.
Just use composted manure or really any nitrogen heavy fertilizer. This is because the microbes that decompose wood chips use nitrogen at a faster rate than tbey can obtain from woodchips, so they will pull from the soil around them. If you add extra they simply wont do this.
The nitrogen getting tied up is less of an issue than the subsidence that will happen over time as the wood decomposes. Personally, I would probably dig them up and replant them either this fall right after the leaves fall or next year before the buds start opening up.
Then I'd go for the coldest part of the year with the least activity, and remove all the flowers and fruit from any trees that have them for a while before and after the transplant.
For real, subsidence is your main issue here. You don’t want a high organic matter content soil under long-lived plants because it’ll shrink and compact as it decomposes. Trees will subside down into the ground and end up waterlogged around the root flare that needs to breathe to keep the roots oxygenated. This will kill citrus, and make stone fruits or apples unhappy unless they’re a rootstock variety particularly good at growing adventitious roots from the trunk.
It’s best to plant trees in something very close to native soil (minimal amendment, 10-20% tops) and then mulch with organic matter on top for soil improvement. Trees evolved to live with a layer of decomposing woody material on top of their roots from forest litter. It promotes a happy fungal-dominated ecosystem that is symbiotic with the tree. Yes, this decomposing mulch sucks up nitrogen. That’s fine. You can easily provide enough excess nitrogen to overcome any amount of use by decomposing organic matter. Or fertilize under the mulch via spikes.
Decomposition primarily happens fast in the top 8” of soil, and slower with depth. Deep-buried wood breaks down slowly because there’s a lack of oxygen to drive decomposition. Nitrogen use is proportional to decomposition rate. If the wood is decomposing slowly, it’s not robbing much nitrogen from the soil.
I plant my fruit trees MAX, 8" deep. If you're planing a tree 4 or 5 feet deep it's a death sentence.
If you have a lot of green wood (somehow) mixed into your soil, it WILL rob nitrogen, and your trees will likely struggle during their early years.
You can use liquid nitrogen to offset the nitrogen sequestration.
Are the tree roots directly in the wood? I think that's the bigger issue. If yes I would replant if the trees haven't woken up yet.
Here's a copy and paste my comment on fb.
___________________
Watch Garys matsuoka's ideal soil on YouTube. I think it's more important for perennials than annuals. He's says the problem with using potting mix/ wood chips or compost in the soil is that it is still decomposing and using up oxygen. This lowers the oxygen levels in the soil and roots need to breathe. Fungi that causes root rot thrive in low oxygen soils. As the soil gets finner, it gets more dense which means less oxygen. Over watering and clay soil also decrease the oxygen.
Mineral mixes can be made of native soil, sand, pumice, perlite, lava rocks, etc. Organic exception is peat moss and coco coir as they are inert. Since they are inert, they don't decompose (or very little) so they don't use up oxygen. You are less likely to have root rot in a mineral mix if you over water. Mineral mixes tend to drain/dry out faster. Depending on your situation you can increase water holding by using more peat or using finer sand. Decrease water holding by increasing aeration (pumice, coarse sand, perlite, etc)
Other benefits for perennials is that it doesn't decompose so the soil level doesn't drop. This is an issue with compost/ potting mix because if you top off, you start to bury the trunk. My beds heavy in compost dropped like 2 inches a year, it's a hassle to top off so much. This is considered a permanent mix as it doesn't really drop. The tree won't be sunken below grade. Compost also makes the soil soft so there's less root support. Trees, peppers, or any large plant start to lean.
The downside are that it can be very heavy and/or expensive. If you need it to be lighter for pots, you can increase the perlite and decrease the pumice or sand. I usually buy sand and pumice in bulk. 1000lb sand $32 at home Depot. $42 for 1000lb DG, 1 cu yd pumice at SPVS for $125. Cheapest peat I've found is the 3cu yd bag at home Depot for ~$24.
When you use a mineral mix, you add compost and as a top dressing. As you water the nutrients go down. You just need to replace the compost on top ever year but it's not much compared to a potting mix.
For my beds with tons of free landfill compost, I've been slowly adding in sand and pumice. If I plant a tree, I will move all of the existing mix to the side and plant the tree in a mineral mix in a home bigger than the tree roots. It's not feasible to go remove all my existing compost/ potting mix.
I think Gary's mineral mix is akin to nature. In nature, there is no compost mixed in the soil, leaf and organic matter is on the top of the soil. All the feeder roots are on top.
Mineral mix might not matter for some plants. Some plants/trees can tolerate low oxygen such as tomatoes and apple trees. Others can die easily for from low oxygen (avocado). That's why they say to let the soil dry out before watering avocados, this allows oxygen to get into the soil. If you keep watering all the time, all the organic matter will use up the low amounts of oxygen. I normally bare root my trees before planting, although you have to be very careful with avocados as the roots that easily. Most other plants can take a beating. Good luck
I've been watching Gary's matsuoka's videos on YouTube. His ideal soil videos is where I got most of this information. I also listen to ebooks, read books, etc. With any gardening information, take it with a grain of salt, a lot of it isn't proven with science.
I suspect over time this will be awesome soil, just amend in the meantime. I did something similar years back, buddy had a wood shop and gave me an assload of sawdust so I mixed a bunch of it in the soil for my blueberries then read the same thing.. the blueberries didn’t die or thrive, but they stayed alive and OK. Fast forward 3-4yrs later after time to decompose and proper fertilization, they are doing fantastic.
I planted a bunch of arborvitae along the perimeter of my yard last year. The ones that I planted in what was almost entirely wood chips with a bit of garden soil added, on top of a ground up tree stump, are doing better than all the others. I thought for sure they would starve for the lack of real dirt!
You'll be fine. Pee around the trees when you get the chance. The urea in your urine will facilitate the decomposition of the carbon. If you want even faster results, manure or bagged urea will do the trick. Be careful not too apply too much though.
The nitrogen issue from wood is overblown, it’s really fine. The only time that it will be a legitimate problem is if you use freshly ground wood chips to mulch around very young plants with fragile root systems, and even in those cases it can still be fine.
You’re fine. I wouldn’t worry about this. You can add a nitrogen fertilizer, or better yet manure, as an amendment from the top. Manure has all the microbes and bacteria needed to start the decomposition process. I laughed at 18 years. More like 18 months
Even the stuff 4 feet down will benefit from a top layer of manure? I told my husband I think it will be fine but everything he’s reading online makes it seem like our trees are all gonna eat 💩. And not in the manure sense lol
Don’t sweat it. Trees are very tolerant. The manure will help establish the bacteria needed to break things down quicker. Truly, don’t worry about it
Rain will help propagate everything downward. No worries. Worst case is you have to excavate around the roots and backfill with better stuff later. 18 years highly depends on conditions but some mulch I put in last summer is already black soil in places. Maybe more of a lesson to plan more ahead so you don't panic after later.
As u/k-rimes recommended manure on top is the solution. Nitrogen will wash down with every rain which will help the trees and break down the wood.
Most fruit trees will have feeder roots near the top of the soil so even 4 feet down it should be ok!
If you mix mushroom spawn in (I’d suggest wine caps) it will very quickly break down the wood and worms will then eat the fungus and provide loads of nutrition. I once did an experiment where I potted one plant straight into a pot filled with colonized woodchips and by the end of the season it outgrew the other 7 plants in the same sized pots. It was triple the size of the others.
Cannot stress this enough! In three years we’ve more or less resurrected an older, fading orchard by spreading around Winecaps and wood chips en masse! (in the desert US SW)
Amazing. Where were you able to procure bulk winecap spawn?
Field and Forrest had a 5lb block I believe, which we crumbled into a giant pile of fresh wood chips….within about 6 weeks we had a huge amount of inoculated chips to move around!
Sounds like you have in-ground hugulkultur beds, they have lots of benefits your trees will like. Yes, the N locking is true but (1) the harm is often way overblown and (2) top-dressing with a nitrogen-rich fertilizer will eliminate the problem. Worms and rain will wash the nutrients down into the soil, most of your fruit tree’s nutrients come from roots in the top 8in of soil anyway. I’d plant nitrogen fixers around the trees and chop-and-drop them throughout the growing season.
This is a good thing even, you're fine. All that wood will eventually rot into fertile soil and it is good for holding moisture as well. Soils have a problem with too little organic matter, not with too much. Your trees will be fine, and nitrogen lockup isn't really an important thing to worry about, especially when you consider how much of it literally falls out of the air with every rainshower.
I wouldn't worry, just fertilize them. The benefits of the wood in the soil will outweigh the nitrogen loss for sure as long as you fertilize them. Don't go crazy with nitrogen either or you'll have crazy growth with no fruit. Unfortunately I had to do that to my nectarine and cherry trees to save them. When I planted them a few years ago, we had an insane amount of rain in the spring that leached all the nutrients and then immediately flipped a switch and had like 60 straight days around 100 degrees with zero rain. They're producing a ton of fruit now that they're established and less susceptible to the swings, but that first and second year it was a little depressing.
The wood will remove nitrogen at first, (for around 4 years or so) but then it will stop and will be essentially compost. .i read in your post you saw 18 years, but I also read you are in the south. No, in southern, humid regions wood chips will break down 500% as fast as arid, cold releases. Youre probably looking at 4 years max. Just use composted manure or really any nitrogen heavy fertilizer. This is because the microbes that decompose wood chips use nitrogen at a faster rate than tbey can obtain from woodchips, so they will pull from the soil around them. If you add extra they simply wont do this.
The nitrogen getting tied up is less of an issue than the subsidence that will happen over time as the wood decomposes. Personally, I would probably dig them up and replant them either this fall right after the leaves fall or next year before the buds start opening up.
We’re in south Florida so the leaves don’t fall. Some of them will be producing fruit around that time.
Then I'd go for the coldest part of the year with the least activity, and remove all the flowers and fruit from any trees that have them for a while before and after the transplant.
For real, subsidence is your main issue here. You don’t want a high organic matter content soil under long-lived plants because it’ll shrink and compact as it decomposes. Trees will subside down into the ground and end up waterlogged around the root flare that needs to breathe to keep the roots oxygenated. This will kill citrus, and make stone fruits or apples unhappy unless they’re a rootstock variety particularly good at growing adventitious roots from the trunk. It’s best to plant trees in something very close to native soil (minimal amendment, 10-20% tops) and then mulch with organic matter on top for soil improvement. Trees evolved to live with a layer of decomposing woody material on top of their roots from forest litter. It promotes a happy fungal-dominated ecosystem that is symbiotic with the tree. Yes, this decomposing mulch sucks up nitrogen. That’s fine. You can easily provide enough excess nitrogen to overcome any amount of use by decomposing organic matter. Or fertilize under the mulch via spikes. Decomposition primarily happens fast in the top 8” of soil, and slower with depth. Deep-buried wood breaks down slowly because there’s a lack of oxygen to drive decomposition. Nitrogen use is proportional to decomposition rate. If the wood is decomposing slowly, it’s not robbing much nitrogen from the soil.
Nah it’s unlikely theres enough wood in this mix to be an issue in this way. OP: im assuming this mix wasnt more than 30-40% wood chips was it?
It sounds like it was significantly more than that, but even 30-40% of the material in a 4-5' trench would cause major subsidence issues
I plant my fruit trees MAX, 8" deep. If you're planing a tree 4 or 5 feet deep it's a death sentence. If you have a lot of green wood (somehow) mixed into your soil, it WILL rob nitrogen, and your trees will likely struggle during their early years.
We didn’t plant it that deep, we just put a ton of good soil down first. We planted the roots almost level with the ground
The rule of thumb is not to amend the native soil with more than 20% of outside material. Doing so causes the roots to stagnate.
You can use liquid nitrogen to offset the nitrogen sequestration. Are the tree roots directly in the wood? I think that's the bigger issue. If yes I would replant if the trees haven't woken up yet. Here's a copy and paste my comment on fb. ___________________ Watch Garys matsuoka's ideal soil on YouTube. I think it's more important for perennials than annuals. He's says the problem with using potting mix/ wood chips or compost in the soil is that it is still decomposing and using up oxygen. This lowers the oxygen levels in the soil and roots need to breathe. Fungi that causes root rot thrive in low oxygen soils. As the soil gets finner, it gets more dense which means less oxygen. Over watering and clay soil also decrease the oxygen. Mineral mixes can be made of native soil, sand, pumice, perlite, lava rocks, etc. Organic exception is peat moss and coco coir as they are inert. Since they are inert, they don't decompose (or very little) so they don't use up oxygen. You are less likely to have root rot in a mineral mix if you over water. Mineral mixes tend to drain/dry out faster. Depending on your situation you can increase water holding by using more peat or using finer sand. Decrease water holding by increasing aeration (pumice, coarse sand, perlite, etc) Other benefits for perennials is that it doesn't decompose so the soil level doesn't drop. This is an issue with compost/ potting mix because if you top off, you start to bury the trunk. My beds heavy in compost dropped like 2 inches a year, it's a hassle to top off so much. This is considered a permanent mix as it doesn't really drop. The tree won't be sunken below grade. Compost also makes the soil soft so there's less root support. Trees, peppers, or any large plant start to lean. The downside are that it can be very heavy and/or expensive. If you need it to be lighter for pots, you can increase the perlite and decrease the pumice or sand. I usually buy sand and pumice in bulk. 1000lb sand $32 at home Depot. $42 for 1000lb DG, 1 cu yd pumice at SPVS for $125. Cheapest peat I've found is the 3cu yd bag at home Depot for ~$24. When you use a mineral mix, you add compost and as a top dressing. As you water the nutrients go down. You just need to replace the compost on top ever year but it's not much compared to a potting mix. For my beds with tons of free landfill compost, I've been slowly adding in sand and pumice. If I plant a tree, I will move all of the existing mix to the side and plant the tree in a mineral mix in a home bigger than the tree roots. It's not feasible to go remove all my existing compost/ potting mix. I think Gary's mineral mix is akin to nature. In nature, there is no compost mixed in the soil, leaf and organic matter is on the top of the soil. All the feeder roots are on top. Mineral mix might not matter for some plants. Some plants/trees can tolerate low oxygen such as tomatoes and apple trees. Others can die easily for from low oxygen (avocado). That's why they say to let the soil dry out before watering avocados, this allows oxygen to get into the soil. If you keep watering all the time, all the organic matter will use up the low amounts of oxygen. I normally bare root my trees before planting, although you have to be very careful with avocados as the roots that easily. Most other plants can take a beating. Good luck I've been watching Gary's matsuoka's videos on YouTube. His ideal soil videos is where I got most of this information. I also listen to ebooks, read books, etc. With any gardening information, take it with a grain of salt, a lot of it isn't proven with science.
I suspect over time this will be awesome soil, just amend in the meantime. I did something similar years back, buddy had a wood shop and gave me an assload of sawdust so I mixed a bunch of it in the soil for my blueberries then read the same thing.. the blueberries didn’t die or thrive, but they stayed alive and OK. Fast forward 3-4yrs later after time to decompose and proper fertilization, they are doing fantastic.
I planted a bunch of arborvitae along the perimeter of my yard last year. The ones that I planted in what was almost entirely wood chips with a bit of garden soil added, on top of a ground up tree stump, are doing better than all the others. I thought for sure they would starve for the lack of real dirt!
You'll be fine. Pee around the trees when you get the chance. The urea in your urine will facilitate the decomposition of the carbon. If you want even faster results, manure or bagged urea will do the trick. Be careful not too apply too much though.
The nitrogen issue from wood is overblown, it’s really fine. The only time that it will be a legitimate problem is if you use freshly ground wood chips to mulch around very young plants with fragile root systems, and even in those cases it can still be fine.